Monday, December 04, 2006

Thee Cellar Dwellers

Thee Cellar Dwellers were masters of the garage rock genre. Listening to "Wonderin' Why" again after many years, I am impressed with just how faithfully Thee Cellar Dwellers recreated the 60s garage rock sound. These songs would sound more at more on the Nuggets box-set than they would on the Children of Nuggets box set. We can debate whether that is a good thing or not, but I defy anyone to identify anything about these sides that would date them to 1987 instead of 1966. In the final analysis, this rocks, and that is more than good enough for me.

The band never got around to putting out a full-length LP, which is too bad because having seen them live I can tell you they easily had an LP's worth of good material. If memory serves, their raw and rockin' live show was better than the single would indicate (although the single is very good). Thee Cellar Dwellars were as good as any garage revivalists of the 80s, save The Lyres (whose music somehow managed to transcend the genre's limitations even while working within it), and The Cynics (whose lead singer could scream as well as anyone in the history of rock and roll).